Quote:
Originally Posted by harveyc
Tog, I generally try to do that (but get behind sometimes), though I tend to try to keep pups of two sizes attached. However, I'm talking of leaving lots of pups attached when the mother plant has lost all of its leaves (either because of frost or wind damage, like Mitchel is talking about). Some people have said the pups help, but Mitchel's experience contradicts that. Since pups are attached to the mother corm, I could see that they might provide food to it or suck food out. I've never seen anything scientific reported on how things work. Maybe Gabe can chime in.
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Non-scientifically speaking, The clump of plants are all attached to each other by the corm and they feed as a single unit
but with the strongest individual taking up the bulk of the food. If the main plant is in its fruit production stage, the food intake is maximum. Having other pups/plants around will only take away much of the needed nutrition. In the case you mentioned about damaged leaves on the fruiting plant, maybe, just maybe, the leaves on the pups helped by doing the work of photosynthesis for the group as a unit giving nutrition to the one bearing fruit.
On the other hand, if there is no fruit production, the pups will help in the overall growth as they have the extra number of leaves on them for photosynthesis. I guess that's why over here with the constant favorable condition, clumps get bigger and bigger with everyone
bringing home the food through combined photosynthesis!
Plants with the pups and bud removed always give the max in production here. It is a practice over the ages and these people are not scientifically minded.
Quote:
Originally Posted by momoese
Harvey, you remember the thread about the albino AeAe pups taking energy from the mother plant until either the mother or the albino died? Food for thought.
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Mitchel, albinos once detached will always die. Undetached, it's is only a matter of time. If they able to grow, the main plant is supplying as much nutrition as it can. Remember that Variegated plants are weak plants as a big portion of their work surface/leaf does not have the ability to photosynthesize, so feeding another albino plant which does no photosynthesis at all on its own will put alot of stress on it.
In the case of a
seed germinated albino, the kaput time is even shorter. Before the embryo is sucked up, it is gone.
These are observations I have made in the field. C'mon, whack me!